Help!

Last fall, I was responsible for using Adobe InDesign to create the layout for a magazine project. I'd taken a Photoshop class in 2003, but InDesign is a different monster altogether and requires that one study its features before really using it well.

After creating the layout for four pages of articles, I needed to number the pages. Some other groups talked about how irritating it was to number each page individually, and this got me thinking: if InDesign is a professional quality program, why wouldn't it include a simple feature (page numbering) that even Microsoft Word uses?

I opened the Adobe help in InDesign and, using the search box, I typed in "number pages" and quickly found an article on how to automatically number pages in InDesign. Later, when I needed text to continue from one page to the next, I used the help box again and found the answer.

Here's my point: if you're using a professional program, there is a way for the computer to do a lot of tedious work automatically. That's why computers were invented; why spend hours numbering pages or applying formatting to 60 pages of text when there's an automatic way to do it? If there is something you want to do, try using the help function of a program to figure out how it works. You may need to learn the vocabulary of the program, but that should come more naturally with time. The creators of these professional programs know their reputations are a vital part of their marketing, so if there's not an intuitive way to do something, they'll give their users a way to find out how to do it.

And always, if help fails you, Google is your friend. Guaranteed, someone else on the internet has had your problem before, and it's on Google.